Kodiak AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: KDK), founded in 2018, is a leader in Physical AI, developing driverless technology that powers machines that move. Its Kodiak Driver is a vehicle-agnostic autonomous driving system that combines AI-powered software with modular hardware. Today it operates in long-haul trucking, industrial trucking, and defense. In 2024, Kodiak launched commercial Driver-as-a-Service operations with no one in the cab, and plans to launch driverless long-haul service between Dallas and Houston by the end of 2026.
Kodiak has partnered with many of the biggest names in freight, including Bosch for scaled hardware production, AWS, and leading customers including Atlas Energy Solutions, IKEA, Bridgestone, Werner Enterprises, C.R. England, Roehl Transport, and General Dynamics Land Systems.
We are seeking a Staff Autonomy Perception Engineer to join our Perception Engineering team. In this role, you will use your expertise in state estimation & multi object tracking to shape the perception stack as we scale, incorporating and developing state of the art algorithms and techniques. You’ll leverage advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and techniques to deploy and scale safe autonomous perception systems. If you're passionate about how robots perceive and understand the world at scale, this role is for you.
What You'll Do
- Define and lead the technical direction for learned scene estimation within the Kodiak Driver
- Architect and implement principled approaches for fusing information across multiple modalities: camera, radar, lidar, thermal, and IMU
- Lead improvements to multi-target tracking including track initiation, measurement-to-track association, and track state maintenance — with a focus on reliability in the hardest real-world conditions
- Develop novel algorithms that incorporate noisy, incomplete measurements into a robust foundational understanding of the world
- Build the tooling, metrics, and visualization infrastructure that lets the team move faster and evaluate progress rigorously
- Set a high technical standard across the Perception team through design reviews, code reviews, and mentorship
- Partner with teams across autonomy to ensure perception performance translates into system-wide safety and reliability
What You'll Bring
- BS or MS with at least 8 years of industry experience, or PhD with at least 5 years, building and deploying state estimation and sensor fusion systems
- Deep domain expertise across sensor fusion, state estimation, Kalman filtering, particle filtering, and multi-object tracking
- Strong experience with deep learning and learned scene estimation — you know when to use classical methods and when learned approaches win
- Exceptional C++ skills and a track record of writing highly maintainable, production-quality code in high-reliability systems
- The ability to define metrics, design rigorous evaluations, and use data to make principled engineering decisions
- A history of technical leadership — you have driven projects from ambiguous problem to shipped solution and raised the level of the teams around you
- Strong written and verbal communication; you write clear design docs and build alignment across disciplines
Bonus Points:
- Behavior prediction and scene understanding at scale
- Real-time perception systems under latency and compute constraints
- Autonomous vehicle or robotics deployment in unstructured environments
- Experience defining team-level technical roadmaps or leading multi-engineer efforts
What we offer:
- Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
- Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
- MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
- Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
- Our office is centrally located in Mountain View, CA
- Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
- Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
- Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation)
- Fidelity 401(k)
- Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
- Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)
The pay range listed below reflects the base salary in our SF/Silicon Valley location, across several internal levels. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors including: work location, experience, relevant training, education, skill level and performance during interview. Total compensation at Kodiak includes base pay, equity, bonus and a competitive benefits package
Skills Required
- BS or MS with >=5 years industry experience, or PhD with >=3 years academic or industry experience in state estimation and sensor fusion systems
- Domain expertise in sensor fusion, state estimation, Kalman filtering, particle filtering, multi-object tracking, deep learning, learned scene estimation, and behavior prediction
- Proficiency in C++
- Strong software engineering skills and experience building high-reliability deployed applications with maintainable code
- Solid understanding of metrics, data analysis, and scientific evaluation
- Experience developing tooling, metrics, and visualization to evaluate sensor fusion and perception performance
- Excellent communication skills and experience writing clear design documentation
- Ability to iterate quickly, take ownership, and collaborate across engineering disciplines
Kodiak Robotics Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Kodiak Robotics and has not been reviewed or approved by Kodiak Robotics.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered market-competitive for core engineering roles, with role postings indicating strong senior bands and offers aligned to autonomy peers. Salary ranges visible on listings reinforce competitiveness for experienced technical hires.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are commonly included with standard multi‑year vesting, and listings frequently note salary plus bonus and equity as part of offers. This makes ownership a regular component of total rewards for technical hires.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage includes medical, dental, and vision alongside life and short‑/long‑term disability, with FSA/HSA options available. Wellness partners such as mental‑health and primary‑care services are highlighted alongside core plans.
Kodiak Robotics Insights
What We Do
Kodiak Robotics is an autonomous technology company redefining the long-haul trucking industry. We believe self-driving trucks will be the first economically viable application of autonomous vehicle technology. We founded Kodiak in the spring of 2018 to make that belief a reality. Safety is our top priority. We are taking a safe and responsible approach to developing and testing our technology. We are proud to work with some of the best in the business. We’ve built a world class team of technologists from leading autonomous driving programs who know the industry inside and out. Our combined experience and commitment to the vision will allow us to put self-driving technology on the road in the safest and most effective way.
